


The Train

by fardareismai



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, First Meetings, Human AU, meeting on a train, strangers meeting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-30
Updated: 2015-08-30
Packaged: 2018-04-18 00:48:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4685909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fardareismai/pseuds/fardareismai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Strangers meet on a train.  Can a crush with a handsome stranger turn into something real?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Train

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fleurdeneuf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleurdeneuf/gifts).



> **I wrote this on a whim half an age ago and posted it to Tumblr, and it was one of the most popular things I've ever posted to Tumblr.  Then I pretty much forgot about it (except for about three paragraphs of a follow-up chapter that might never come to exist in its entirety) until Fleur brought it up tonight.**
> 
> **So I thought I'd inflict it on you now.**

Rose could feel the person standing next to her as the carriage doors closed and the train started moving again, but she didn't look up from her book. It was 3 AM and there was no one else on the entire train, she didn't have to pay attention to anything but which stop they were on, and where she would have to get off.

"Mind if I join you?" the voice asked.

Rose finally lifted her eyes from the page, ostentatiously scanned the empty car (more than 20 seats that the man could have sat in alone and not bothered her) and then turned her attention to the bloke looming above her.

And her heart stopped.

It was Him.

She didn't know anything about Him- not a name, not a voice, not anything but the fact that she couldn't seem to refer to Him with anything but a capitalized pronoun. All she knew was the obvious: He was some bloke who was always,  _always_ on the train that she took when she went to the department store for the closing shift, that He always,  _always_ wore a leather jacket, and that He always,  _always_ drew her eyes, no matter how many times she told herself that it was rude to stare.

She'd tried to explain it one afternoon when she and Shareen had shared a shift and the older girl had asked what she kept looking at (Shareen had chosen a seat that faced away from the seat that He always sat in, so Rose had spent the entire ride looking back over her shoulder at him).

"He's got massive ears and a huge honker, and he's got to be 40 if he's a day," Shareen had said.

Rose could deny none of it, but it didn't matter in the slightest. Just the sight of Him made her mouth water.

And here He was, asking if He could sit next to her on an empty train carriage.

And it had been nearly a minute and Rose hadn't said anything… just stared in open-mouthed astonishment as the smile had grown across His wide, soft mouth, lips pulling away from charmingly-crooked teeth, and those stunningly blue eyes that sparkled with the light of the cosmos…

Oh bollocks, she still hadn't said anything!

"Yeah, sure, go ahead," she stumbled, scooching closer to the window to allow Him space next to her.

He settled in next to her, and Rose tried to turn her attention back to her book, even knowing it would be futile. The warmth of His thigh, settled right along hers, the smell of leather and London air, and a low note of soap or cologne or some other appealing fragrance that emanated from Him, the very fact of his being there, next to her, in her space, when she'd only ever seen Him from afar.

"Never seen you on the train this late."

"Wha?"  _Oh, way to go, Rose_ , she berated herself,  _sound like an absolute moron, why don't you_?

"Yeah, normally when I see you on the train it's around 2. Not every day, but a couple of times a week."

"Er… yeah. It's… when I work the closing shift at my job. I… I take that train." At least she was using words now, even if she couldn't quite manage any that were more than two syllables. Or very interesting.

"Oh yeah? Where do you work?"

"Henrick's," she said, with a small wince. Here she was, twenty years old (almost… in a few weeks, anyway) still doing shift work at a department store. And there He was, an actual adult who probably had a real job doing important things and He was about to laugh at her and call her a little girl.

"Oh yeah?" he said. "I'll have to stop by. Don't do much clothes shopping, me," He glanced down at the jumper, jeans, and boots that was the exact same costume He wore every time she saw him, then glanced at her with a grin in His eyes, "could always use a jumper in a new colour, or some socks."

"Er… yeah. They've got good products and… prices…" Rose wanted to jump out the window onto the tracks below. What was she, a walking advert for the store? "And what about you? What do you do?" Finally, her brain was starting to work again. Deflect attention from her idiot mouth.

"Oh, you know, all sorts," He said, waving a hand dismissively. "What are you reading?"

Rose glanced down at her book and quickly snapped it shut, making sure that the cover was never visible. "Nothing," she muttered, shoving it into her bag.

He was watching her with an expression of surprised amusement. "Looked like a pretty well-thumbed 'nothing,'" He remarked, but said nothing else.

Rose didn't want to talk about it. She knew what her accent made people assume about her, and for the most part she didn't bother herself much about it- people would think what they wanted to think, and their thinking didn't hurt her one iota, but when people found out that the chav from the Estates was reading Dickens, they started to laugh, and Rose hated when people laughed at her. Her mother called it "putting on airs and graces." Shareen called it a waste of time that could best be spent catching up on EastEnders. Mickey smiled and patted her hand in that patronizing way of his and changed the subject to the latest match on the telly.

She couldn't stand any one of those reactions from Him.

"What do you mean, 'all sorts,'" she asked, feeling defensive, but unsure exactly why.

He didn't seem offended. "I mean what I say, I do all sorts. They call me the Doctor."

"A doctor? Riding the subway?" Rose snorted. Not a chance in hell.

"Not  _a_ doctor,  _the_ Doctor."

"Is that supposed to sound impressive?"

He grinned suddenly. "Little bit, yeah. What about you, what are you called?"

"Called? Oh, all sorts," she said, copying his dismissive phrase and his dismissive way of brushing off her question.

What was she called by that ubiquitous "they?" Blondie, chav, drop-out, loser. And they were all true, but not anything she would admit to Him.

"You're the clever Doctor, what do you think I'm called?"

His grin faded, but didn't disappear. It went from His mouth into His eyes, making them shine as they zeroed-in on Rose's face.

"I'd call you Stella," he said, quietly, "or Luna."

"Luna? Like the mad girl from Harry Potter?" Rose pretended that she was offended, but, in truth, she was pleased. Luna was clever. Luna was funny. Luna didn't give a rat's ass what anyone thought of her.

"Luna like the moon," he said, with a shake of his head. "I know you can't usually see it in London, but maybe you've heard of it? Causes the tides and been the source of legends and mystery since time immemorial." His eyes suddenly darkened, and a wicked grin crooked the corner of his mouth. "And romance… can't forget that. Very romantic, the moon."

Rose wasn't sure she would ever breathe again. "Not…" she squeaked out, then cleared her throat, trying to get a breath without gasping. "Not quite," she finally managed. "Bit more down to Earth than that, me."

"Then maybe Lupe. Your eyes remind me of a wolf I once met in Canada."

"You  _met_ a wolf?" she asked, trying to make herself sound skeptical. More than anything, she was impressed that he'd been to Canada. She rarely left her few blocks of London, much less traversed oceans.

"Met all sorts, me. Wolves and women and little green men." He was grinning again, but Rose didn't think he was laughing at her.

"Regular Fox Mulder you are," she shot back, and he laughed. It was a beautiful sound, that laugh, sweet and musical and delicious, and Rose wanted to hear it forever.

"Does that make you Scully? Never believing anything I tell you?"

"Never know," she said, and wondered where he courage was coming from, "why don't you tell me something believable, and I'll let you know."

"Something believable," he said, looking at her with those sharp eyes again. "Let's think about that."

The PA announced Rose's stop, and she stood. "You thought too long, Doctor. This is me."

"What if I told you I'd like to take you to dinner some time?"

Rose blinked, and nearly fell into his lap when the train jerked to a halt. His hands found her shoulders to keep her upright, and she was jerked back into reality.

"You're right, I wouldn't believe it for a moment," she said, pulling herself away from him and walking toward the door.

"What's your name? Are you a star or a moon or a wolf?" he asked, following her to the door.

Rose shrugged. No harm in telling him and, to be honest, she wanted to. "It's Rose."

"Rose," he said, and smiled again. "I'll see you around, Rose."

As the doors to the carriage closed and the train pulled away, they watched each other until the other disappeared into the dark.


End file.
